Dangers in the past
by WarioMan3K
Summary: DCC #7 of my fanfic series. Sirius, thought to be dead after the Rainbow Palace incident, apparently returned to life to change history in which Nazi Germany won World War II instead of the Allied forces, and he'd become our world's "benevolent king." Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink are miraculously unaffected and must undo the damage to world history as we know it.
1. Prologue

Welcome to Diamond City Chronicles #7, folks! This one will be a little different since the title is likely a giveaway to time-travel - which, so far, is possible in fantasy but not reality for obvious reasons. But other than that, here's the prologue! And as always, I recommend reading the earlier DCC entries within my revamped series firsthand before going any further if you haven't already.

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

-Dangers in the past-

Prologue

CHEERFUL WHITE'S P.O.V.

Wow...what can I say? I mean...uh, gimme a sec to gather my thoughts. Okay, now I feel a little better - and I mean little! Here's the short version: it's been a whole month since that Project: ACT ZERO incident, but it wasn't the only thing going on. Some power-mad hater of my kind named General Shepherd hired a bunch of convicted felons in a desperate attempt to kill me and my friends, and that's including 9-Volt, Phoebe, and especially one of my best friends: Cute Pink! This all happened while Aaron, Ami, Blaze Bomber, and Arctic Bomber went to the restricted Area 51 to take out the rogue general and his personal army of the armored "Super Bombermen" (or as my friends and I would call them: the Zero Men) at the source. As for ourselves, we're glad Bill and Lance were there to protect us from those Killer Mohawks, otherwise we'd be dead by now!

Oh, and get this: apparently Shepherd had been stockpiling what our Contra pals came to call the Bacterion warships in secrecy as part of his plot to not only destroy my people of planet Bomber, but also to make himself the absolute ruler of the United States. Thank Mihaele our four heroic Contras got rid of him _and_ the stolen warships! I mean, heck, he even tried to blow up Diamond City with some of those warships just to kill us!

Anyway, Project: ACT ZERO is long gone and so is Area 51. I can understand Aaron, Ami, Blaze, and Arctic's guilt for what they did, since that base was supposed to be government property...but you know what 9-Volt, Phoebe, Kat, Ana, Pink, and I think? We think they did the right thing in a defensive response to General Shepherd's failed attempt to destroy the city. Even Bill and Lance thought the same as well, because then the Bacterion warships would have self-activated and threatened the Earth, had the Contras not destroyed the base by setting the enemy ships to self-destruct all at once. I'm sure it's an understandable reason what they did at Area 51 had to be done...

Well, despite their efforts to come home alive, the CrygorCopter was destroyed, but at least their Contra Cruiser is still running fine. Speaking of which, Penny Crygor and Blaze Bomber had just built a new CrygorCopter and assigned me, Pink, and Arctic Bomber to test its flight capabilities. Take, for example, being able to survive reentry through Earth's atmosphere. We thought this would turn out to be such a nice day...but we all thought wrong.

END P.O.V.

* * *

Cheerful White (aka. Shirobon, White Bomber), Cute Pink (aka. Pretty Bomber), and Arctic Bomber's quest is about to begin...but not in a way they think.


	2. The Sirius Time

Chapter 1 is now up and running, with something unnatural about to happen around our heroes in due time...

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 1: The Sirius Time

[Opening BGM: Prelude of Legend (Gradius III (arcade))]

March 15, 20XX...

A whole month had come and gone, for on that very day of February, we Four Contras thwarted General Shepherd's plans to eradicate all of Bomber-kind and replace them with his own Bombermen. But ever since we discovered - and destroyed - plenty of stolen Bacterion warships, that were housed within the restricted Area 51, there had been many rumors in which the Bacterions would arrive on Earth sometime between now and next year. The only accurate theory we, the people of Diamond City could come up with, was the Bacterions are likely to arrive witin our planet's range in months. Still, nobody knew the exact number of months...

So therefore, we had arranged for both mankind and Bomber-kind alike to co-exist on Earth, only insofar as to work together to build powerful spaceships, as well as help prepare all military factions worldwide to defend Earth from the evil Bacterions. We've seen what the stolen Bacterion warships could do, but beyond that, we could only imagine how much damage an entire armada of Bacterions would do in a full-scale invasion. Come to think of it, we might even need to get in contact with the people of planet Gradius for assistance, if we can. After all, just because the planet is like light years away from ours, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get in touch.

Today, in Diamond City we had just finished rebuilding the CrygorCopter since its old incarnation got destroyed last month. However, tests had to be done to prove that we're ready to assist the other countries soon to be fighting for Earth. Arctic Bomber volunteered to take Cheerful White and Cute Pink for a ride to the Earth's moon in space; whereas Blaze Bomber, Penny Crygor, Bill Rizer, Lance Bean, Ami Onuki, and I took point as the "mission control" via Crygor Labs.

[End BGM]

"Okay, we've just arrived in the moon, and are heading back," called Arctic Bomber. "What now, Blaze?"

Her fire-themed ally's voice came through the radio. _Is the helicopter's force field turned on?_

"Crap...Hang on." She looked for the right button and pressed it, activating the force field. "I've got it!"

_Good job, Arctic. Much like the Contra Cruiser, the CrygorCopter should be able to survive reentry through the Earth's atmosphere without burning up._

"What'll happen to the force field?" asked Cheerful White.

"It's not gonna disappear after reentry, is it?" added Cute Pink.

_If my calculations, along with Penny's, are correct, no damage should be done at all._

* * *

Henceforth, Arctic Bomber piloted the CrygorCopter out of the moon, and back to Earth. Suddenly, a strange shockwave came out of nowhere and flew right through! The CrygorCopter went shaky, but thankfully, the three Bombermen were unharmed since they were wearing their seatbelts. When Arctic Bomber regained control, she did as Blaze Bomber instructed, and came back on Earth via Diamond City...or, at least what _was_ Diamond City before unexpected changes were noticed.

Arctic called again, "Blaze, do you copy? Come in, Blaze Bomber! Do you and the others copy?! Aaagh! Stupid communicator..."

"What happened, Arctic?" asked White.

The Mistress of the Cold pounded her seat in frustration to vent it out momentarily. "...I dunno, White. I think that shockwave scrambled our communications or something."

Pink gasped. "That doesn't look good. Should we check it out?"

"By all means, yes," answered White, stepping out first only to see two security robots.

[Alert BGM: Environmental Shock (Metroid Fusion)]

"HALT," said one of the robots. "PRESENT PROPER IDENTIFICATION."

White stepped back in fear. "Uh-oh...guys?"

Pink came out upon hearing the commotion. "What is it, White?"

The other security robot spoke up, "SECOND REQUEST: PRESENT PROPER IDENTIFICATION."

"What identification? We're friends of WarioWare Inc."

"'WARIOWARE INC.' NOT FOUND. YOU ARE IN A RESTRICTED AREA."

"LANDING ON PLANET SIRIUS WITHOUT PROPER IDENTIFICATION IS AGAINST THE LAW OF KING SIRIUS."

Arctic Bomber threw her hands in the air. "What the hell are you two blabbering about?! This is planet Earth, for Pete's sake!"

The security robots shouted in unison, ignoring the three Bombers' protests. "SECURITY BREACH! SECURITY BREACH!"

"RUUUUUUUNN!" White and Pink cried simultaneously.

[End BGM]

The threesome were forced on the run from the two security robots, who alerted additional reinforcements to their presence. Apparently, the shockwave must have teleported Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink into a world similar to ours; only Sirius was seemingly never dead to begin with. The one golden-armored android who ruled within his Rainbow Palace in _Bomberman 64_, won and took over. Either that, or...something disrupted the space-time continuum.

[Reunion BGM: Rebel Army Theme (Final Fantasy II (GBA version))]

Arctic Bomber and the two Bomber-kids' train of thought stopped, as they were called upon by what seemed to be us. Facing no other option, they did as they were instructed. Once inside, they only found their WarioWare friends (albeit sporting different appearances)...but no sign of me, Ami, Bill, Lance, Yuffie Kisaragi, nor even Blaze Bomber.

"Guys!" called Arctic. "Man, are we glad to see you! What the hell's going on in this world?!"

Mona was the first to explain, "Ever since the Allied forces lost World War II, everything was on the brink of ruin. Not because of the Axis Powers alone...but of the one golden-armored man named Sirius. While he single-handedly took out Red Falcon and his minions...he only wished to be the sole ruler of what was called planet Earth. Ever since he came into existence, he renamed it planet Sirius..."

White paused, expressing sadness over what had happened in these past years. "Oh no...that's awful! But, where are the Contras? Y'know, Aaron, Ami, Bill, Lance...Blaze Bomber? Or even Yumi of Puffy AmiYumi, since she's Ami's best friend? And Phoebe - your best friend - any signs of her, too?"

9-Volt sighed painfully. "They...they were never here. We only knew them for a little while, before Sirius did them in. The same went for Phoebe and her dad, and their people of Video Game Dream. Sirius's so-called law states that anybody helping us, the WarioWare Rebels, are doomed to be terminated off the face of the world."

"9-Volt...is that really you?" wondered Pink.

"Yes...why?"

"You look different, and even sound different. I mean, the 9-Volt I know was usually a happy, healthy kid. Well, where we come from, that is..."

"You love Nintendo games, right?" reminded White.

9-Volt sighed. "No...there never were any video games, since King Sirius banned them. He insisted that they 'distract' people from worshipping him 24/7..."

Arctic Bomber became confused. "Okay, hold on a second. I thought you - I mean, the Contras - got rid of Sirius before he could even turn Earth into his very own world, in which he would name after himself! I may not be the brightest Bomberman in the galaxy, but I think he must have something to do with our being here! Now that I mention it, why weren't we affected?"

Cheerful White answered, "Maybe that force field from the CrygorCopter shielded us."

Cute Pink added, "Which means...we're the only ones who recognize you guys! At least, I think so..."

"So, how are we gonna undo all the damage Sir...ugh, _King Sirius_ did?" asked the ex-Hate Bomber.

Penny replied, "Recently, we've managed to crack the code by building a replicant of the time machine Sirius uses to do as he pleases. It took us nearly two years to figure it out, but we've done it."

"So what you're trying to say is: he's used the time machine to disrupt the space-time continuum?" questioned White.

Pink joined, "As in, make it look like the bad guys won World War II instead of the good guys?"

9-Volt nodded, albeit sadly. "I'm afraid so. I curse that golden fiend who made the world this way! He even killed my mom sometime after my dad perished in the Alien Wars!" He pounded the ground in frustration, before Mona comforted him soothingly.

The pink-clad Bomber-girl assured, "9-Volt, we're gonna use the time machine to undo all the damage that Sirius has done. That's a promise I intend to keep on your behalf. While we can't guarantee the change of the Alien Wars' outcome, we'll get your mom back...and Phoebe, your 'Player 3', as well."

Before the trio left, White warned the others, "But, you might wanna understand that once we do fix history, you - this version of you along with the others - will have never existed..."

"...Yeah," said 9-Volt. "Nothing could make me any happier than your success, now that I lead the WarioWare Rebels on behalf of our freedom."

[End BGM]

* * *

After an odd, yet important conversation with the Rebel forces, Arctic Bomber and the two Bomber-kids got into their own duplicate of Sirius's time machine to travel all the way to 1944, the year the Allied forces began their D-Day invasion in Normandy, France. However, a large hologram of Sirius appeared before them while they were time-travelling, taunting as he spoke: _Oh no, it won't be that easy! I knew you were planning on travelling back in time to World War II, so I hacked into your friends' mainframe and installed this computer virus into your duplicate of my time machine! In short, I'm banishing you into a time-warp of my own without having to lift a finger, from which you Bomber-fools will NEVER return! You'll soon cease to exist, just like your Contras! Know this, and fear it: I am King Sirius, this world is Sirius, and everything in it is Sirius! AH, HA HA HA HA HAAH! Which time period you'll end up, nobody knows, thanks to good ol' ME!_

His hologram cackled maniacally, as it vanished.

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place.

[End BGM]

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

Where the heroic Bombermen have ended up, nobody knows for sure...at least until after they arrive someplace.


	3. The Ice Age

Arctic, White, and Pink's time-travelling quest to the altered past has begun.

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 2: The Ice Age

[Stage BGM: Northern Hemispheres (Donkey Kong Country)]

The year was 23,000 BC...a time where cavemen and women lived during the Ice Age. At the time, the men would set a trap for their food, so that when an animal fell for it, the men would go and kill it. Of course, depending on the size - for example, a big-enough creature would have to be cut into big chunks of meat, which were to be eventually hauled into the cave the men live in. Afterwards, the women and children would cut said creature (such as a mammoth) into pieces that they were able to cook.

Most of all, they lived in this time where there were no hi-tech wars or anything. Apparently, Sirius hadn't invaded this era, though the computer virus he implanted on Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink's time machine banished them to another time and place, in anticipation that they would never return to restore us and our home planet back to normal conditions. On the other hand, the Earth apparently wasn't renamed "planet Sirius" during the Ice Age...

As soon as the three Bombermen showed up, they found themselves out in the cold. While Arctic Bomber loved the idea of an ice-themed world, White and Pink reminded her that they have a mission to accomplish. With their time machine infected by the virus, they could only count on its antivirus program to exterminate the virus. Obviously, it would take a while, so the threesome had no other choice but to explore the icy area itself, hoping to find someplace warm to keep themselves from freezing up. Along the way, a local caveman greeted them with curiosity.

"Hello. Who are you?"

Arctic Bomber replied, "Well...let's just say we're visitors from another time."

Cheerful White added, "It's complicated."

The caveman examined their outfits, even glancing at their helmets on top. "What you three wear?"

"Long story..." Cute Pink paused briefly. "Oh, you mean the ones on our heads?"

The caveman nodded in response, while Arctic explained what they're actually wearing and why (albeit looking out of the ordinary to this time period). "Helmets. They're...let's see...these things you wear, so as to protect your head from harm."

"They made of stone?"

White shook his head no. "I don't think so, but let's just say they're made with iron..."

Pink interrupted her best friend by whispering at his ears, "But iron wasn't invented until years later, White..."

The resident caveman scratched his head in confusion. "You strange people. But you not bad like caveman-munching monster. He Yum-Yum. He gulp down our women and children for dinner. He look like big boar, yet he walk on two legs like man. Best not fight him if not armed like our best cavemen."

Upon hearing the creature's name, Arctic Bomber said to herself, "Hmm...Yum-Yum...what a strange name."

"Do you recognize his name from, say, any video game you've played before?" asked White.

"Not that I know of. I don't have a vast knowledge like Aaron, Ami, or even 9-Volt do. Well, good thing I kept my Contra-style machine gun from that Area 51 incident, so I'm sure getting rid of that Yum-Yum guy should be a snap!"

But before the ex-Hate Bomber could get out the aptly-named Neo Contra Rifle she "found" during our mission to expose General Shepherd's bioweapons division - and prior to the disruption in the space-time continuum - Cute Pink flailed her arms as if to deny her the right. "No, Arctic! We can't do anything to disrupt the space-time continuum! Guns, let alone _machine guns_, weren't invented during that time period yet!"

"Yeah!" exclaimed Cheerful White. "Our mission's to save world history, not blow it up!"

The caveman, however, just remembered something else he had in mind. "Our prophecy say reliever from south come aid us in time of need. Drive Yum-Yum out of our land!"

Now Arctic Bomber and her allies were confused. "Well...we did walk in from the south, I think. so...maybe we did arrive at the right time!"

"This just gets weirder, doesn't it?" asked White.

"We'll find our answers when we defeat Yum-Yum," assured Pink.

* * *

And so, Arctic Bomber led Cheerful White and Cute Pink into a nearby village, where they heard more stories about Yum-Yum kidnapping a bunch of the villagers' children for his upcoming dinner. Although Arctic Bomber assumed Sirius must have sent him to do some damage of his own on world history, she kept it quiet so as to not alarm the cave people any further than before. Instead, they believed their village leader's prophecy about relievers from the south coming to aid them in the fight against Yum-Yum. Henceforth, they were each given three stone-wrought axes to fight the monsters inside a large cave where Yum-Yum lived in.

[End BGM]  
[Boss BGM: Boss Battle (Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins)]

After a while of exploring the cave and fighting the wild boars, the threesome reached Yum-Yum's lair. Luckily, they caught him getting ready to gobble up a wild boar on his stone-wrought plate. They used their time they had to inflict damage with their stone axes, until Yum-Yum finished eating the wild boar. He turned his attention towards the Bombermen, but just as he opened his mouth to eat them, Arctic Bomber got out a Bowling Bomb and threw it down his throat. "Uh-oh..." the boar-like monster groaned, just before Arctic's bomb exploded inside him, blowing him to nothing but bones.

[End BGM]

Arctic gave a peace sign and flashed a friendly wink at her allies. "And that's a blast! See? No more Yum-Yum!"

"Now the cave people can live in peace," commented Cheerful White. "We're lucky our trip wasn't too difficult."

"I'll bet our time machine's antivirus fixed the problem by now!" beamed Cute Pink. "We can go straight to 1944 and dethrone King Sirius!"

With no time to stay in the village to celebrate, the three Bombermen told the cave people they had places to go and save. The moment they returned to their time machine, the computer virus was miraculously deleted, thus enabling them to freely travel to 1944. However, upon activating the machine, the magic within it sensed disturbances in the other time periods, beginning with ancient Egypt.

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place.

[End BGM]

* * *

Meanwhile, in the year 1944, Sirius was relaxing himself at the overtaken fortress in Berlin, Germany. He summoned four supernatural monsters from another world, who called themselves the Fiends of Chaos. Each one represented a different element, albeit in a twisted manner. Upon being summoned here, they eyed Sirius with suspicion.

"Why do you awaken us from the dead?" demanded Lich, the skeletal Fiend of Earth cloaked in a purple robe.

"We were defeated by those accursed Light Warriors long ago..." said Marilith, the six-armed Fiend of Fire whose upper body resembled a woman, the lower body a snake. Each of her six arms held a deadly-looking sword sharp enough to cleave a victim in two with ease.

Kraken, the humanoid octopus-like Fiend of Earth, stepped forth to speak his words. "And yet you choose to summon us. Why?"

Sirius explained, "I want you to go to back in time to the time periods I've listed, to do plenty of damage to world history! The meddlesome Earthlings have probably already planned on ruining my plans for the brand-new planet Sirius!"

Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind whose appearance resembled that of a five-to-six-headed dragon, questioned her unlikely master's plan, "What is in it for us?"

"I'll share parts of my world with you, once you accomplish your tasks!" With that said, the four Fiends of Chaos reluctantly nodded, and teleported out. Then Sirius continued, "This war will soon be over, and the power of Nazi Germany is all mine! Chaos reigns all across history! And nothing can stop me now...not even the Four Contras, or their meddling close friends!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

The trip to the Ice Age has come and gone, for next stop is ancient Egypt. Yes, I know this chapter was a tad short, but I'll try what I can to make the next ones a bit longer than before, at least for the rest of the time-travel-themed fic.


	4. Soaring through time

The time-travel continues, only now our heroes have the four Fiends of Chaos to tangle with.

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 3: Soaring through time

[Stage BGM: Pyramid (Dragon Quest III (SNES/Super Famicom))]

The time now was the year 47 BC, in the ancient desert land known throughout history as Egypt. During that period, there existed the last pharaoh who ever lived, her name being Cleopatra VII Philopator, whose mother is believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena. Hailing from Alexandria, Egypt, Cleopatra was made into a ruler alongside her brother, Ptolemy XIII, when Ptolemy XII Auletes (her father) died in March 51 BC. However, even when she was married to her younger brother, she insisted that she had no intention of sharing her power with him. About 5 months later, her words came true as she dropped his name from official documents.

Although she was eventually banished from her throne in favor of Ptolemy XIII in 48 BC, she came across Julius Caesar during the Roman civil war (also known as "Caesar's Civil War"). During that time, he seized the Egyptian capital, thus imposing himself as arbiter between the rival claims of Ptolemy and Cleopatra. His reason for doing so was because Ptolemy had killed Pompey, the Roman consul, and added insult to injury by presenting Caesar with Pompey's severed head. In the meantime, Cleopatra took advantage of Caesar's anger toward Ptolemy by having herself smuggled secretly into the palace to meet with him. She eventually became his mistress in 47 BC, and he in return altered his plans for Egypt by choosing to help Cleopatra reclaim her throne.

As soon as Arctic Bomber finished telling all she knew about ancient Egypt (if not everything), Cheerful White and Cute Pink were unsure of who to trust once their time machine had arrived. Thankfully, though, Arctic Bomber was competent enough to make sure her young friends were not misled into doing anymore damage to the space-time continuum than Sirius might have done. Right after they arrived, they stepped outside to recap what Arctic Bomber told them.

"So how do you know all this stuff about Egypt?" asked White.

"Bill and Lance told me these historical facts," answered Arctic, "intent on showing me what not to do whenever I start my own winter kingdom for real. For example, beauty ain't everything."

Pink added her two cents to the answer, "I thought the first priority was for you to control your anger."

"I know, but that's not the only thing I gotta take into account."

White, on the other hand, thought of something else. "Speaking of which, I only knew about Egypt back when I played _Cleopatra Fortune_ on my PlayStation. I had it along with _Bomberman: Party Edition_, _Bomberman Fantasy Race_, and _Tetris Plus_..." He stopped himself in mid-sentence, realizing he got himself carried away. "Sorry for changing the subject. You were saying, Arctic?"

"I'm saying we ought to be careful on who to trust."

"You mean like Cleopatra was a bad person back then?" questioned Pink.

"Well, duh! She wanted all the glory to herself when she kicked her brother out of ruling alongside her, remember? Hell, I heard she even tested various deadly poisons on condemned persons and animals for daily entertainment!"

The Mistress of the Cold thought for moment about what she said, letting out a sigh in the end to calm herself. She was worried that any socializing with Caesar and/or Cleopatra might risk jeopardizing the mission to save the space-time continuum. "I'm sorry for that sudden outburst. I just don't want to lose you two during our quest to restore world history back to its former glory. But since our time machine detected something's amiss in this time period, I say we investigate the source of the problem without siding with either one of the two dictators. More importantly, we can't get involved in the Roman civil war that's currently going on at the time. But once we're done, we screw off."

"So in other words, we don't socialize with Caesar or Cleopatra too much," said Pink. "Wait, don't the people of Egypt speak Arabic?"

Arctic nodded in response. "That's just what I was hoping for, which is why I decided to keep the translator device from our late summer campaign, just in case. Technically, because I'm the only one who has it, you'll have to rely on me to translate for you, so don't be surprised. Oh, and I think they spoke Egyptian rather than Arabic at that time. Or maybe Egyptian Arabic all the way to the present, but I'd rather not go too much into detail about it. All we need is my translator device set to the right language and we're good to go from here."

Pink turned her attention towards White. "Well, White, I'm afraid we have no choice."

"I dunno." White scratched his head briefly. "Maybe Caesar and Cleopatra aren't as bad as we might think at first. But you're right: I hope we don't get forced into slavery..."

His best friend shook her head no. "I doubt it. We're both kids, remember?"

"Yeah, but it's obvious no one in this time period has ever seen a Bomberman before. That, and we still have a lot to learn about Earth's history since we're not born here."

"Then we tell them we're like gifts from the heavens."

"Uh, I don't think that's necessary, Pink..."

Arctic Bomber intervened at this point. "Does it matter whether you tell them or not? Chances are, they'll just think we came from the Egyptian gods, anyway. In short, no need to worry about slavery and crap. Like I said, when we resolve the situation at hand, we clear out, even if Caesar and/or Cleopatra tell us otherwise."

The Great Roman Civil War itself, which occurred from 49 to 45 BC, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire. Whether this was the cause of the problem on the Bombers' part or not, they walked in to investigate. Arctic Bomber turned on her translator device, so that whenever the Egyptian locals spoke their native tongue, she could understand them and translate for White and Pink. According to the locals, they felt that something about Cleopatra herself had changed. It was as if she became more tyrannical than they thought before. She had suddenly stopped caring about rebuilding her empire, instead focusing on herself.

"Is Cleopatra..." White was at a loss of words.

"I dunno," said Pink. "It sounds to me like she's stopped caring about her own people."

"Maybe Julius Caesar has something to say, that will help us."

"Guys, I warned you against any socialization with him and Cleopatra," reminded Arctic.

Pink asked worriedly, "But if we don't find our answers soon, who knows what'll happen as the years go by?"

Arctic Bomber shrugged, but then gave in to the Bomber-kids' pleas. They decided to go and talk to Julius Caesar himself. When asked about Cleopatra, all he could say was that she stopped talking to him, ever since a purple-robed skeleton showed up. He tried to reason with her, but the skeleton scared him off with a threat: anymore questioning would risk his death. Arctic Bomber knew for a fact that he was supposed to have died on the "Ides of March" (or March 15, 44 BC), but she kept it in her head so nobody heard it but herself.

"Then it's settled," commented White. "We'll go in there, and defeat this purple-robed skeleton monster."

Changing her translator device's settings to translate from Greek, Arctic listened to what Caesar was about to say. "Είσαι τρελό? Έχει γη-αποσυντιθειμένος εξουσίες. Αυτός θα μπορούσε να χειριστεί την Κλεοπάτρα σε πεθαίνουν από την πείνα το λαό! (Are you crazy? He has earth-decaying powers. He could manipulate Cleopatra into starving her own people!)"

As Arctic translated for her allies, Pink told Caesar, "Not if we blast him into bones first."

"Στη συνέχεια θα χρειαστείτε αυτά, παράξενο τους φίλους μου. (Then you will need these, my strange friends.)" Caesar willfully handed over three iron daggers, fearing the "out-worlders" wouldn't stand a chance without them.

"We'll handle them with care," said Arctic.

[End BGM]

Upon hearing the words "earth-decaying powers", Cheerful White and Cute Pink were able to recognize the skeleton monster as the Lich, for they heard stories in which he wreaked havoc alongside the other three Fiends of Chaos in _Final Fantasy I_. The Bombers stepped inside with courage, ready to destroy the source of Egypt's distress. Then the monster's voice rung out loud, "Who speaks to me?"

White shouted in response, "The three of us! Why?"

"Ha ha ha ha ha...you have no idea who you're dealing with. My master sent me to conquer Egypt, firstly by manipulating this vain woman into starving her own people! Do you think you have what it takes to defeat the Lich, the Fiend of Earth?"

[Boss BGM: Boss Battle A (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

The Lich attacked by casting Fira, Thundara, and Blizzara on the group. They were hurt, but not bad since Arctic Bomber can absorb ice spells to neutralize the effects of Fira. They retaliated by throwing their bombs at him, inflicting burning damage. However, he was only getting started.

"Do not think you can get by me so easily!"

With that said, he increased his physical capability by casting Haste on himself, while decreasing the Bombers' movement with Slow. He was temporarily given an easier time to pummel the threesome with his punches and swipes from his bony hands, and repeated his usage of the Fira, Thundara, and Blizzara spells. Despite their slow movement, the Bombermen were able to fight back with their bombs. As soon as Slow's effects wore off, the Lich cast Death, summoning the Grim Reaper to steal their souls.

"You cannot kill the undying! Your time is nigh!"

"Care to wager on that?" retorted Arctic Bomber, drawing the Grim Reaper's attention by taunting him, intent on giving White and Pink ample time to break the Lich's concentration - and kill him as well. After another barrage of cartoon bombs thrown at him, he was reduced to nothing but bones, which dissipated from existence along with the Grim Reaper. Had they not acted quickly enough to end this battle, let alone interfere with the Lich's concentration on his Death spell, they surely would have fallen before his undead might by now, and the space-time continuum forever tainted in King Sirius's favor. Either way, they watched as Cleopatra came to her senses...

[End BGM]

Without delay, Arctic Bomber set her translator device to Arabic - at least in its Egyptian form. But to avoid any complications, she simply called it Arabic and listened to Cleopatra's voice. "ماذا.. ماذا يكون قد فعل؟ الدقيقة الأولى، كنت أتحدث مع يوليوس قيصر، ولكن ثم الدقيقة القادمة، أنا يحدقون على هذا الهيكل العظمى اروابهم الأرجواني و... (What...what have I been doing? The first minute, I was talking with Julius Caesar, but then the next minute, I gazed upon that purple-robed skeleton and...)"

Suddenly, Caesar walked on in to the throne to speak to the Egyptian queen in Greek, prompting the honorary Contra to change her translator device's settings again. "Ήταν χειραγώγησή σε δικούς σας ανθρώπους πεθαίνουν από την πείνα, από το τέρας. Πήρε το πλεονέκτημα της δύναμής σας... (You were being manipulated into starving your own people by the monster. He took advantage of your power...)"

Cleopatra sighed painfully, guilty for what happened when she neglected him and her people. "Έχεις δίκιο. Θα πρέπει να γνωρίζουν καλύτερα από το να τον εμπιστεύεστε. Δεν αντέχω τις συνέπειες του τι θα μπορούσε να είχε συμβεί, μου επέτρεψε να συνεχίσει... (You're right. I should have known better than to trust him. I cannot bear the consequences of what might have happened, had I allowed it to continue...)"

"And now, he's gone, thanks to our efforts," White said happily.

"Now, do you promise to look after your people more, as you rebuild your empire?" asked Pink.

Cleopatra answered in Arabic, again prompting Arctic to switch the translator device back to the Egyptian language. "على الرغم من أننا لا نضمن أنها ستوقف الحرب الأهلية الرومانية، واعدكم بأن تتخذ أفضل رعاية بلدي وطن. الوداع. (Though we can't guarantee it will stop the Roman civil war, I promise to take better care of my homeland. Farewell.)"

* * *

And thus, the three Bombermen left to return to their time machine. With Egypt free of foreign disturbances, they set course for several more years ahead. They took a guess as to what year they would stop at next, until the time machine detected a disturbance in ancient Japan.

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place.

[End BGM]

* * *

[Stage BGM: Zipangu (Dragon Quest III (SNES/Super Famicom))]

Cheerful White, Cute Pink, and Arctic Bomber had now fast-forwarded in time to the year 210 AD, when Himiko was ruling ancient Wa (Japan) as a shaman queen of Yamataikoku. According to the early Chinese dynastic histories, the Yayoi period people chose her as ruler following decades of warfare among the kings of Wa. However, months before the arrival, she suddenly became obsessed with sacrificing any of the women that she could find, claiming it to keep Orochi, a legendary 8-headed and 8-tailed dragon, from tormenting her kingdom any further. Arctic Bomber was able to recognize a little bit of the situation at hand, from a walkthrough she read on _Dragon Quest III_ one time, thus enabling her to predict something fishy is going on with Himiko's sudden demand that women are to be sacrificed to Orochi.

"Alright, so the problem we're facing here is probably similar to what happened to Cleopatra back in ancient Egypt. Only now, like in _Dragon Quest III_, the real Himiko was eaten by Orochi, who then took upon a magic disguise as her. If what I read is right..." As she gathered her thoughts, she changed her translator device's settings to Japanese.

"How can a dragon disguise himself as a human woman like Himiko?" Pink asked confusedly.

"I think I remember playing that RPG classic itself before," replied White. "Maybe he did it because the Archfiend, Baramos (an overweight, humanoid dragon), gave him that ability to do so. A one-eyed Boss Troll did the same for the king of Samanao, only he had a Change Staff with him for the impersonation business."

Rather than just bust on in to Himiko's residence and expose her without proof of evidence, the three Bombermen asked some locals about the 8-headed dragon himself. Translated from Japanese, the people told the heroes that they last spotted Orochi taking residence in a nearby shrine, using it as his personal sacrificial chamber. Then they feared that Arctic Bomber and Cute Pink were chosen as sacrifices so that the beast won't come out and wreak havoc, but Cheerful White assured them that this weird problem will be resolved if he leads his friends in to _slay_ Orochi.

[End BGM]  
[Fight BGM: Battle (Dragon Quest III (SNES/Super Famicom))]

Inside the shrine, the 8-headed dragon awoke at the heroes' presence. He breathed flames from his mouths for burning damage, but Arctic Bomber was quick to counter it with her snowstorm. Then she materialized an ice sword to use against the dragon, while Cheerful White and Cute Pink relied on their bombs and iron daggers to slay him. The beast lunged forth in an attempt to eat the Bombermen, but they dodged every bite just by a few inches. Before they took him out with well-timed stabs, they kicked him in the belly so hard, he coughed up a few people that miraculously survived getting digested, including Himiko herself.

"どうしたのですか。私は本当に行っている長い間、獣の腹内側ですか？ (What happened? Have I really been gone for so long, inside the belly of the beast?)" wondered Himiko, though she was polite enough to thank her rescuers for getting her out of Orochi's belly.

"Well, this is quite unusual, but I guess that counts as fixing history," said White.

"We're not done yet," interrupted Pink. "That dragon is getting away!"

Orochi feigned defeat by walking out of the shrine, intent on retreating to the real Himiko's residence. The three Bombermen led the surviving victims directly into the vicinity, and found the beast standing next to the fake Himiko.

[End BGM]

Inside the mansion, Cheerful White warned angrily, "Whoever's impersonating the Queen of Yamataikoku, show yourself!"

The impostor began to speak, albeit in their same language. "You wish to know my identity? I did not expect mere mortals in odd-looking helmets, such as you three, to be able to find me out so quickly. I heard about you from the Lich when you defeated him in ancient Egypt."

Arctic Bomber smirked. "Even a bit of video game knowledge can work wonders in real life."

"It matters little on how you exposed my ruse. I was sent here by the mighty king in golden armor, my new master, to incite horror upon ancient Japan, with the legendary Orochi provided for me in my ruse."

[Boss BGM: Boss Battle B (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

The impostor revealed herself as a red-skinned snake woman with blonde hair, and six arms on her serpentine body, each brandishing a sword. "The power of the burning flame has always been, and still is mine alone! Those who oppose Marilith, the Fiend of Fire, shall burn in hellfire!"

Cute Pink became confused. "So is this the real Orochi, or just a clone? If you're talking about Sirius, I doubt he had an ability to summon demonic creatures into the living world."

Arctic Bomber groaned in annoyance. "We'll ask him about it when we see him again, okay? Because right now, we have a Fiend of Fire to cool off!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, mortal! Kill them, my loyal minion!" Orochi let out a roar in response to Marilith's command.

"Sorry, but nobody's burning and eating us today." denied White.

Marilith hissed at her would-be aggressor's remark. "How shall I fry you with my flame magic for the dragon: medium well, or well-done?"

Arctic scoffed. "Oh, that's just lame!"

Marilith came swinging her swords about, while Orochi charged forth for another go at gobbling up the three Bombermen. Arctic Bomber neutralized the Firaga spell and the dragon flames with her icy wind, freezing the aggressors. White and Pink thrust their bombs at Orochi with all their might, so that the blast not only destroyed the ice, but it also shattered the beast into pieces. It turned out not a moment too soon, that he wasn't cloned for real, but actually a stone statue brought to life by magic. As for Marilith, she broke out of the ice with her sharp blades.

"You may have broken the Fiend of Wind's spell, but the battle is not over yet."

"You mean...Tiamat?" wondered White.

"Long before I was awoken prematurely, she had laid waste alongside the Kraken to the world in which the accursed Warriors of Light lived in."

Pink turned over to her best friend, having put two and two together on what Marilith was talking about. "White, I'm beginning to see a pattern in our quest..."

White nodded. "Me too. Chances are, we'll be fighting the Fiend of Water himself next, but the ocean is his natural habitat, isn't it?"

Marilith interrupted their conversation with an angry hiss. "If my flames will not cut your friend's ice...Death shall be just! Come forth, Reaper! Your caster beckons thee!"

Arctic Bomber smacked the front of her helmet in disgust. "Aw man, not this again!"

By casting Death, Marilith summoned the dark-robed Grim Reaper with a scythe in his bony hands. First, he went for Himiko to make up for Orochi's demise, but the two Bomber-kids swatted him away with their iron daggers. Just as he was about to chop their heads off and take their souls, Arctic Bomber broke Marilith's concentration with her Bowling Bombs, causing the Reaper to dissipate. The Fiend of Fire grew mad, her sword attacks becoming wilder as she slithered about. Part of Himiko's residence became damaged during the process, not to mention Marilith bringing down a barrage of Firaga spells. Despite all that, Arctic Bomber acted fast to put out all the flames with her snowstorm before anybody got killed. Eventually, after blasting the deadly blades out of Marilith's hands with their own barrage of bombs, the heroes triumphed over her. In death, she dissolved into ashes, which slowly but surely disappeared out of existence afterwards, as did her six swords that were knocked to the floor.

[End BGM]

With ancient Japan free of the Fiend's reign, Himiko expressed her apologies to her people, in regards to the women whom were wrongly sought for the sacrifice to Orochi. Then she asked White, Pink, and Arctic why they looked so different. Rather than tell her they were Bombermen from the future, they covered it up by saying that they used to be human, until a witch cast a never-ending spell on them.

"魔女で終わることのない呪文ですか？それは恐ろしいです. (A never-ending spell by a witch? That's dreadful...)" said Himiko.

"Yes...but we are making the best of it as we go," noted White.

"There are other places for us to go, but we're grateful for your offer to stay here and guard your people," added Pink.

Himiko nodded with a smile. "分かりました。あなたの 3 人が平和と別れの旅行します。 (I understand. May the three of you travel in peace, and farewell.)"

* * *

After bidding the people of Yamataikoku adieu, the three Bombermen returned to their time machine. They had set course for a thousand more years into the future, but not to the year 1944 yet. The time machine detected another disturbance in the space-time continuum, originating in the year 1620. That's when they wondered how it was able to detect disturbances that happened many years from the time period they were in before.

Prior to their departure, White took note of the condition at hand. "I'll bet our time machine's antivirus must have altered Sirius's computer virus, so that instead of it taking us and our machine to any randomly-chosen time period, it detects whatever disturbances he and his minions are causing!"

Pink beamed in agreement. "Well, how about that! And it only took us about two time trips after we landed in the Ice Age, to figure it out."

"Anyway, you better hold on again, 'cause here comes another bumpy ride in time!" warned Arctic Bomber, starting the time machine once more.

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place.

[End BGM]

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

Two Fiends of Chaos down, and only two more to go before our heroes would finally be free to time-warp to 1944!


	5. Routing the Fiends of Chaos

Here's the next chapter where our heroes tangle with the other two Fiends of Chaos!

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 4: Routing the Fiends of Chaos

[Stage BGM: Chaos Shrine (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

Hundreds of years later into the future, yet still in the past, Arctic Bomber and her two unlikely allies had arrived in yet another time period that Cheerful White and Cute Pink didn't recognize. But when the current year on their time machine displayed "1620 AD", that's when Arctic Bomber suddenly remembered what she had watched on the History Channel one time (of course, out of boredom). This was the year the Pilgrims of the Mayflower Compact, headed by Captain Christopher Jones, sailed to North America to colonize at Plymouth - which would later become part of Massachusetts at the time. And that, as a matter of fact, was almost 130 years after Christopher Columbus set sail for the Americas.

Cheerful White and Cute Pink thought for a moment, how would someone as evil as King Sirius disrupt this time period and why. There never were any attacks on the Mayflower Compact...or, so history goes. Unless, of course, Sirius had planned to disrupt the era out of awareness that White, Pink, and Arctic had already killed two of the Fiends of Chaos thus far. Either that, or he intended on slowing them down so they'd never reach the year 1944 alive. Now, thinking way back to the beginning of their time-traveling journey, approximately 2 hours had passed since they started. There just had to be something useful they overlooked, that could temporarily keep them from aging...at least until after they completely undo the damage that Sirius had done to the space-time continuum, especially when they do make it to 1944 in one piece.

"Hey, fellas!" called White. "Check out these belts I found!"

Cute Pink snapped her fingers in delight. "Ahh...of course! I can't believe we forgot about those."

Arctic Bomber added, "Before we went on our quest, the alternate versions of our friends told us about the Anti-Aging Belts. They're programmed to keep us from aging during our mission to save history. Luckily for us, it's only been two hours since we started, so it shouldn't be too big a deal."

"I'm glad to hear you're capable of learning, Arctic Bomber."

"Heh, that's just the thing I gotta do when it comes to being a Contra." Arctic put on her belt, as White and Pink followed suit. "It's not always about shooting alien scumbags with guns and all that."

Then White said, "Now to step outside and..."

Upon getting off the time machine, the threesome found themselves aboard the Mayflower. As they stepped outside, they saw the Pilgrims - and Christopher Jones as well. Of course, it's no secret the people were surprised by the Bombers' sudden appearance aboard the ship. Since the Pilgrims spoke English, there was no need to use Arctic Bomber's translator device. In fact, the three Bombers were quick to assure the Pilgrims, that they were not stowaways whatsoever. Just like in the earlier time periods they went through, they had to cover up their true identities so as to not cause any indirect interference with the space-time continuum.

"Who are you three anyway?" demanded the captain. "And where did you come from?"

White tried to think of an answer without revealing his identity. "Technically, more like...well, when we came from."

Pink, however, answered for him anyway. "It's a long story. I'm Cute Pink, he's Cheerful White, and the lady in sky blue is Arctic Bomber."

"Where we come from, we used to be human...until a curse turned our bodies into this," summarized Arctic.

"Strange as you may be, but I can tell you're not bad," said Christopher. "Not like two weird-looking pirates, who strangely resemble you, that led an attack on us last night. They were assisted by some giant blue octopus who can talk in our language. I fear at this rate, we may not survive to reach the Americas as scheduled..."

Arctic Bomber thought to herself momentarily, _Weird-looking pirates, that look like us? Wait a minute...no! It can't be, unless...crap! I forgot about Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber! They said they'd finish our fight another time, but could they really have revived Sirius somehow as if he were their god?_

"None of us Pilgrims ever know that one such octopus could even exist, except the pirates simply called it the Kraken. We all thought the creature was merely a myth."

"If the enemy is intent on sabotaging your trip to the Americas, then we'll do what we can to stop them," assured White.

"Both of us may appear to you as children, with Arctic Bomber being the oldest, but we're capable of staying alive," agreed Pink. "But...don't you have any weapons?"

"No, I'm afraid not." Christopher shook his head no. "We only intend to journey across the sea to the New World, where we would then colonize. We barely escaped that attack, though."

"Then we'll stay with you until these pirates are gone for good," said Arctic Bomber.

[End BGM]  
[Alert BGM: Bad Event (Final Fantasy III (DS))]

Just then, a fog showed up as a pirate ship's surprise entrance. As soon as the fog cleared up, Arctic Bomber instantly recognized the two pirates leading a crew of goblins. _I knew it! It is them - Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber! There was no other way Sirius could've came back alive, unless they revived him!_

"Ahh, Arctic Bomber...What great timing!" beckoned Aqua Bomber.

"We didn't expect you'd show up with two of your little friends in an early time period as this," said Cyclone Bomber.

"So you're the ones behind all this..." muttered Arctic.

"Not entirely; just the fact that we ran into Sirius's dead body in a sunken ruins of his Rainbow Palace, back in the present. Cyclone, if you will?"

"Aqua and I believed he'd promise us a great reputation if we brought him back to life, so we did just that. He then made us his loyal subjects in return, before proclaiming himself as a king."

Cheerful White summarized the two Dark Force Bombers' explanation, "And finally, he went to the year 1944 to usurp Hitler's reign, and take the headquarters for his very own..."

Aqua had his eyes on his supposed nemesis. "Right you are, White...or should I say Bomberman? You do remember me and Cyclone Bomber from once before, don't you? You fought us back while we served your old nemesis, Bagular."

"And I'd defeat you again, this time not alone."

Christopher, confused over the conversation, demanded to know. "Germany? 1944? Sirius? What's going on here?"

Arctic Bomber sighed painfully, worried that revealing her and her friends' identities would jeopardize the space-time continuum, but she explained herself anyway. "I know it's extremely hard to swallow, but...we're actually like time guardians from the future. These pirates are only quite a few of our sworn enemies. That's why we're here: to defeat them, and make your journey to the Americas safe once more, as far as historical facts go!"

"Oooh, playing the time cops now, are we, Arctic?" Cyclone Bomber questioned mockingly. "Unfortunately for you, the Fiend of Water is already here with us and our goblin minions!"

"Behold the fearsome Kraken, and despair!" boasted Aqua Bomber.

[End BGM]  
[Boss BGM: Boss Battle A (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

Our from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, arose the large, purple-clad blue octopus himself: Kraken, the Fiend of Water from _Final Fantasy I_. Though he commended White, Pink, and Arctic for having come this far by defeating the Lich and Marilith in the earlier time periods, he was more than happy to obey King Sirius's orders without question in an effort to avenge two of his fallen allies.

"Hmph. You helmet-clad humans do impress...I would not have thought to see you here. But do you really think you can defeat me in my kind of domain? Ho ho ho! Fools! These dark depths shall be your tomb!"

Arctic growled at the Kraken's threat. "Not while we're still able to save the rest of world history! White, Pink, you board Aqua and Cyclone's ship to take 'em out! I'll make sure King Calamari never lays his ugly tentacles on any of the Pilgrims!"

The Fiend of Water laughed heartily in response. "Ho ho ho! You amuse me with your stubbornness! But you seem to forget that this octopus is much larger than any of which you have ever seen before. There will be no way for you to reach my new master's era alive. I shall enjoy watching your friends die, as I sink this ship!"

"I've taken down big bad guys before. You'd be surprised at what I can do!"

"We shall see! En garde!"

* * *

Meanwhile, Cheerful White and Cute Pink jumped across the sea, using the Kraken's tentacles as stepping stones towards boarding the enemy ship. Along the way, they threw some bombs at his face to inflict damage. He retaliated by spewing some ink from his mouth, but White and Pink got on board the ship and side-jumped before the ink splattered on their faces. Arctic Bomber distracted the Kraken by firing ice shards from her hands, so that he wouldn't throw her friends overboard in retaliation. From there, they'd have an easier time concentrating on Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber. The goblins, on the other hand, wasted no time manning the cannons, and aiming them at the Bomber-kids.

"Stick 'em up! We're gonna blow you away!"

"Rah, ha ha HA! You couldn't even bomb yer way out of a paper bag!"

White threw some bombs into the cannons, blowing two of the goblins off the ship. The third goblin in line, however, was angered. "Aargh! Yer gonna wish ya hadn't done that!"

Pink, on the other hand, picked up some cannonballs and rolled them to where White was standing. She stretched out her hands momentarily due to their heavy weight. "Oooh, and I thought a 16-lb. bowling ball was real heavy...anyway, I got out these cannonballs for us to use."

"What are you two doing?" demanded Cyclone Bomber.

"Nothing worth mentioning to you. Now, White!"

"Oh, I see what you're thinking, Pink," he said quietly.

In their haste to attack, White and Pink shoved the cannonballs forward like bowling balls, towards the goblins to knock them over like bowling pins. Aqua and Cyclone couldn't help but stare in awe at what the Bomber-kids just did, as Pink beamed cheerfully, "C'mon, White! Let's keep on going till they're off their ship! We've got ourselves a bowling alley!"

White giggled in agreement. "Hey, wait up! We haven't bowled in a little while!"

"Don't just stand around looking dazed, you fools!" berated Aqua Bomber. "Get 'em!"

The goblins charged forth, brandishing their cutlasses for the kill. Despite their numbers, they were no match for the oncoming pile after pile of cannonballs shoved at them. It wasn't long before all the goblins were either smashed against the wall, or bowled off the ship.

"STRRRRIIIKE!" The young, heroic Bombermen high-fived each other.

"You were supposed to be outnumbered, not bowling us over like a pair of hyperactive kids!" cried Cyclone Bomber.

"This isn't working! Ahhh, King Sirius isn't gonna like this...Kraken! It's all up to you!" Aqua Bomber turned to White and Pink. "Remember this: we surviving Dark Force Bombers will take you down someday! Either we do, or the Fiends of Chaos that still remain will!"

He teleported out of the time period, while Cyclone Bomber followed suit, and the Kraken came back. "Having fun toying with this ship, mortals? None can hope to defeat the soon-to-be King of all Seven Seas!"

"Not on our watches!" shouted Arctic Bomber. "Captain Jones, we'll commandeer this pirate ship to take out the Kraken! You just keep on sailing until you reach the New World! I promise you, there won't be anymore monsters threatening your lives, as far as history goes!" She got back into the time machine, and flew off towards the pirate ship.

"If that's what these historical facts say, then we will keep on sailing until we reach our destiny alive. Farewell, and good luck taking out the Kraken!"

As soon as the Mayflower was clear to sail away and out of view, Arctic Bomber landed the time machine on the pirate ship and stepped out to assist White and Pink in loading the cannonballs into the cannons that weren't destroyed. The two Bomber-kids fired away, while the Mistress of the Cold shot some big, icy stalactites out of the other cannons at the Fiend of Water. As he grew weaker from the damage dealt, his attacks grew wilder. He swung his tentacles downwards to batter the ship, while he spewed some more ink from his mouth to blind the Bombermen. He knew he would inevitably perish in battle; thus he intended to bring down the whole ship with him. When another barrage of cannon fire came through, Arctic Bomber finished things up by freezing the Kraken with one last blizzard. He began to dissolve in death, but not before taking one last swing at the pirate ship with his tentacles. Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink were forced to abandon ship by jumping back inside their time machine. They took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, as they watched Kraken go down with the enemy ship, dead.

[End BGM]

"Whew! That was close..." commented Cheerful White.

"I know, but we sure bowled the biggest strike yet!" cheered Cute Pink.

Arctic Bomber, however, sighed. "Too bad Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber got away before we killed Kraken..."

"Hey, don't worry, Arctic," said White. "I'm sure we'll have another chance if we see them again. Now if I remember correctly, there's a Fiend of Wind to tangle with."

"Yeah," agreed Pink. "What was her name again? Tiamat?"

Arctic Bomber nodded. "I think so, but first let's get out of 1620." With that, she set course for another time period, as the machine detected something amiss within the 19th century.

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place.

[End BGM]

* * *

[Stage BGM: Flying Fortress (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

Throughout the following two centuries since the Pilgrims' successful colonization, there had been some of the most intense situations in America's history. For one, the Revolutionary War was waged between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the newly formed United States from 1775 to 1783. During that time, the Continental Congress (headed by Thomas Jefferson with the help of John Adams) formed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which announced that the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer part of the British Empire. Meanwhile, George Washington led the Continental Army as their general in an effort to defeat Great Britain. When 1783 came, the Treaty of Paris ended the war between two rivaling factions. Henceforth, the countries were at peace, and George Washington later became the first President of the United States in 1789.

However, as the years passed, there came a sudden attack in 1848, which was not supposed to happen. Tales of a giant, five-headed (or six-headed, according to few other eyewitnesses) dragon spread throughout Independence, Missouri like wildfire, attacking the inhabitants in its wake, especially those who organized the Oregon Trail. Not many people were killed or eaten alive, but they became too scared to even start their 2,000 mile-long journey to Oregon. At first, they tried to defend themselves, but they were no match for the dragon's fire breath, ice storm (generated by her wings), poison gas, and even thunderbolts. Calling herself Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind, she would avenge the deaths of three other Fiends of Chaos who had fallen before Cheerful White, Cute Pink, and Arctic Bomber. If Tiamat is not stopped, the locals fear their dreams of settling in Oregon would soon fade from history.

"The Lich...Marilith...and the Kraken...All who have fallen more than once before shall not have died in vain. I want the ones who had slain them, for I shall then whet my appetite by devouring their dead bodies! By orders of my new master, they must perish at any cost!" Just then, Cheerful White, Cute Pink, and Arctic Bomber appeared in the midst of Independence, Missouri in their time machine. "Ahhh...the three mortals have arrived at last."

White, Pink, and Arctic tried to ask the locals what was going on, though they were too frightened to even answer. Arctic Bomber asked if it's because she and her two allies are different, but the locals shook their heads no. Then she led White and Pink inside a general store, believing it to be their starting point. They saw a store manager, who coincidentally called himself Matt - the same guy who would appear at the beginning of the first edition of _The Oregon Trail_, selling useful goods to those who are starting their long journey from Missouri. He would recommend how much stuff to buy (for example, no less than six oxen to pull the wagon). Although White and Pink recognized just that, they kept it in their heads since nobody at the time knew what a computer was, let alone a video game based on the Oregon Trail.

"I've seen that monster you're talking about," explained the shopkeeper. "She had about five or six heads, and scared off most of my customers. Now they won't even come in here and buy the supplies essential for their journey to the far West."

"Not if we can stop her," said Arctic Bomber.

Matt gasped in awe. "Are you mad?! What chance do you have if that creature could eat people? It's suicide!"

Cheerful White assured, "We've felt worse."

"But we'll do what we can to help," joined Cute Pink. "Our friend in sky blue will protect us."

And thus, the three Bombermen stepped outside Matt's store and faced the five-headed dragon, whom they managed to recognize as Tiamat, the Fiend of Wind. At first, they thought she had six heads, but after looking carefully they could see five in person.

[End BGM]  
[Boss BGM: Boss Battle B (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

"I commend you three for getting this far in your quest to restore the space-time continuum," the Fiend began. "But it ends here with me! I, the great Tiamat, will make certain you never reach the year 1944 in one piece!"

"We won't let you shatter the people's dreams of travelling to the West, much less Oregon!" shouted Cheerful White.

"The women and children are counting on us to make sure they live to set off on the trail!" added Cute Pink.

Tiamat taunted in response, "You? Ha ha ha ha ha! How can they count on you if they're too scared to even step outside? No matter...I will just kill you now so you never have to deal with their fears! You lack two of the Black magic spells that can defeat me instantly!"

Arctic Bomber shouted, "We won't need Scourge nor Break to kill you!"

"Big talk for a soon-to-be-dead mortal. My appearance shall be the last image ever to burn in your eyes!"

The five-headed Fiend of Wind attacked by breathing fire, which Arctic Bomber carefully dodged due to her weakness against intense heat. Like with Marilith, Arctic counteracted the flames with her icy wind attack. "So, you're playing with ice, eh? Let me show you how it's done, and see if my attacks intimidate you enough!"

The Fiend of Wind flapped her wings rapidly, creating a strong gust of wind in the form of an ice storm. Being the Mistress of the Cold, Arctic Bomber absorbed the cold right in front of White and Pink, so they wouldn't freeze to death. Then she unleashed it from her hands right back at Tiamat, eventually freezing her wings. White and Pink jumped in and blew off the wings with their pumped-up bombs, angering the five-headed dragon.

"Why, you insolent fools! You will soon wish you never did that to me!" Tiamat blew out a gust of poison gas in a fit of rage.

"Blech! Is that a dragon fart?!" Cute Pink tried her hardest to resist the urge to vomit in disgust.

"It's poison gas! Whatever happens, don't inhale it!" warned Cheerful White.

"I hope it's combustible," said Arctic Bomber.

Not caring whether that poison gas was purely methane or not, Arctic Bomber got out two of her Bowling Bombs and primed them for detonation. Then she threw them forward like bowling balls, but Tiamat simply jumped over them in an effort to stomp the ice princess. The bombs, however, detonated seconds later, igniting the gas in a bigger explosion that damaged Tiamat further. She retaliated by breathing fire and spewing bolts of lightning some more, but White and Pink threw their barrage of bombs into her five mouths, inflicting internal damage that stunned her. Then Arctic Bomber formed an icicle blade with her cold wind, and swiftly chopped off all of Tiamat's heads before thrusting it at the chest, finally killing the Fiend of Wind. Her dead body slowly dissolved in flames along with the severed heads.

[End BGM]

"I think that should do it, guys," commented Arctic Bomber. "With most of Sirius's monstrous henchmen swept away from history, the space-time continuum up to 1944 should be back to normal for good. In other words, we've got that selfish bastard right where we want him!"

Cheerful White, however, had something else in mind. "Wait! Before we set off any further in time, shouldn't we go to the time where the people actually make it all the way to Oregon?"

Cute Pink nodded. "White's right. They've been through a lot just now. So I say we go and see it for a moment before moving on. I mean, we've just killed all four Fiends of Chaos."

[Victory BGM: Willamette Valley (The Oregon Trail)]

After Matt and the pioneers thanked White, Pink, and Arctic for slaying Tiamat, they took off in their time machine and set course for the period where the pioneers actually made it to the end. It's a historical fact that the Oregon Trail was a long and difficult journey, often resulting in failure and death. Despite those losses, those who survived began a new and better life in the rich, fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon.

"Well, at least they're relieved with Tiamat gone. Don't you think so too, White?"

"Yeah, I agree, Pink. I'm glad their trip went as planned in the end. Now we can move on...we're finally gonna set things right in 1944."

[End BGM]

With every last disturbance in world history, sans World War II, averted, the three Bombermen set course for June 6, 1944 at long last. From there, they would fight their way to Sirius's fortress and stop his vile history-bending scheme once and for all. But just then, an astral projection of "King Sirius" appeared before them. "Not so fast, Bomber-brats! I've saved the best history-bending disaster for last, which means you'll have to go to 1905 first, _then_ you can come and get me in the year 1944. Who will prevail in the end: you, or the nightmares?"

[Danger BGM: Time Warp (Zoda's Revenge - StarTropics II)]

"AAAAAAHH!" The three Bombermen screamed, as they were eventually warped into another time and place, albeit unexpectedly to the year 1905. It was only a matter of time before they'd comprehend Sirius's words...

[End BGM]

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

A little note on this: I actually thought of writing a chapter in the story where Arctic, White, and Pink time-travel to 1905 to deal with one more history-bending disaster before finally reaching 1944 when I first posted it on DeviantART last year. However, I didn't think it was necessary and instead chose to skip that part at the time.


	6. A city that never sleeps

King Sirius's surprise was just unleashed at the last second; now Arctic, White, and Pink have to contend with a nightmarish situation in the year 1905. Skipping it would not be a wise choice, for whatever happened then can and will change the outcome of the following years since...

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 5: A city that never sleeps

[Stage BGM: Iron Blue Intention (Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin)]

The year was 1905, and just nine years before World War I. All seemed quite well until without warning, trouble reared its ugly head on the citizens of New York, the city that never sleeps. Tales of a large, demonic-looking train from another world spread like wildfire, even beyond the innocent children sleeping at night. At first, it looked as though people were either hallucinating or just didn't believe what they saw, at least before the phantom train revealed its true colors by raining cannon fire everywhere, its true motives beyond their comprehension. The nightmarish demons running the steam locomotive called it the Nightmare Express, infamous for taking its occupants anywhere in dreamland as they went in order to invade people's dreams at night with no remorse. On top of that, all they ever heard was the nightmares were planning to "clean up the military once and for all." No one has dared try to stand up to what is normally seen in a child's dream...until now.

In a flash, Arctic Bomber and her two friends arrived in their time machine, witnessing countless civilians shivering in fear of the Nightmare Express as if its appearance was enough to demoralize them from doing anything in reality. Even the police force had trouble with the demons remorselessly firing on them. That's when it hit Arctic: Sirius must have planned for the nightmares to demoralize the US military to a point in which they'd forever lose their will to fight, let alone get involved in World War I as the years go by, or even World War II for that matter...or perhaps both. History would be utterly destroyed if the incident was allowed to continue. Only one detail bothered her: how and where did Sirius get the Nightmare Express?

"I think I may know what the deal is," said Cheerful White. "Pink and I watched a movie about a young boy, Nemo, in Slumberland when we had our friends over for my birthday one time. There's supposed to be an evil realm for bad dreams called Nightmare Land, and nobody in Slumberland was ever allowed to enter it for safety reasons. The kid was tricked by a clownish fellow named Flip into opening that forbidden door, and...well, let's just say things got hectic when the benevolent King Morpheus got captured by the Nightmare King."

"What does that have to do with anything here?" interrupted Arctic Bomber. "We have an evil train to destroy, y'know!"

"Exactly. From what we've heard just now, I can tell the Nightmare Express must have originated from Nightmare Land, even though it was never shown in the movie or the video game adaptation by Capcom."

"White's right," added Cute Pink. "We're in the year 1905, which is the exact year the movie _and_ the game took place. After King Morpheus was kidnapped, his daughter Camille joined Nemo and his friends - yes, even the mischievous Flip - on their quest to set things right and defeated the Nightmare King. But right now, because King Sirius tampered with the space-time continuum, it's very likely the quest to save Slumberland will never have been successful."

"Hmph, not if we've got anything to say about it," said Arctic. "C'mon, fellas! We're going in to blow up the Nightmare Express!"

* * *

Sometime around midnight, Arctic led White and Pink directly to the evil locomotive's whereabouts with sheer luck, for it was obvious that trains normally _do not_ hover above ground, let alone materialize its own rails for travel. Sirius had indeed made a deal with the Nightmare King to borrow the Nightmare Express and some of his minions for the job to rob the US military of their will to fight. As soon as the heroes' time machine got closer, Arctic jumped off and kicked the caboose's back door open so hard it flew off its hinges, knocking over some goblins in the process.

"Huh?!" exclaimed one of the monsters. "Who's this suspicious-looking girl? Alright boys, let's get ridda her before she spoils our fun!"

_This is probably the only time I'm gonna use it before we get to the year 1944_, thought Arctic Bomber, pulling out her Neo Contra Rifle at last to get in action. As the demonic soldiers charged forth, she unloaded her gun on them, swatting them away instantly. She ran to the other door, kicked it open, and jumped to a converted passenger car up front. More goblins approached her, now accompanied by ogres, in hopes of knocking her off the train. Rather than shoot up the place, she got out a Bowling Bomb and blew them to smithereens for a strike. Afterwards, she jumped on top and kept running, making sure not to fall off by accident. When she got to the next passenger car, two ogres tore parts of the roof open with their spiked clubs, with each one dragging a cannon into the open with all their might.

"There she is!" called the ogre. "Okay, this is where you get off!"

"You're no princess," the other one mocked, "you're a peasant!"

"You ain't seen nothing yet!" Arctic retorted. "The name's Arctic Bomber, and don't you forget it!"

"Big talk, stupid girl!" The ogre loaded his cannon and fired away, with the other following along. Arctic got blasted, but thankfully she didn't get knocked off the Nightmare Express. The ogres laughed heartily at her attempt to maintain her balance, but rather than throw a hissy fit, she goaded them into trying again by putting her index finger up and flicking it closer to herself. They thought she was being stupid and fired again anyways. She dodged the nightmarish cannonballs, and by getting the ogres to aim at each other to hit her, she ducked beneath so that when they shot another of their cannonballs, they ended up blowing each other to smithereens.

After a while of running through the top of the Nightmare Express with help from Cheerful White and Cute Pink, who were still in the time machine, she reached the train's engine car by the tender (where the excess coal is stored for later use). Unsurprisingly to her, a heavy-set monster emerged with a big cannon. Resembling a cyclops, he began to taunt her without a second thought. "You must be an assassin sent by King Morpheus to blow up our Nightmare Express! Indeed you have come to get me, but it is _I_ who will get you!"

The nightmarish creature fired a barrage of cannonballs, with just a few scoring a hit on Arctic Bomber. During the process, the cannon fire destroyed a coupling that was pulling all the other freight cars behind the steam locomotive, indirectly making it easier for White and Pink to take out the rest of the demon train with their bombs. Frustrated that he was tricked, the cyclops smacked his own forehead and resumed fire. Arctic got out her Neo Contra Rifle and tried blasting the cannon apart, but the cyclops laughed it up as a magic shield blocked her shots.

"The Nightmare King's magic barrier protects me as long as I'm using this cannon! Do not think you can escape me, girl!"

The cyclops attacked once again, but Arctic was ready for it. In fact, she began to recall a miniboss she once had trouble with in _Contra: Hard Corps_. A big nail-shaped laser cannon would fire a charged shot at will, and while nothing could even scratch it, only its own laser beams damaged it. In Arctic's case, she thought of her trek throughout the Nightmare Express as a steampunk version of the train level from the game she referenced in her head. However, because the cannon doesn't aim downwards, she could only jump over the cyclops so that when he fired, the high-explosive ball would fly up momentarily and drop back on the train to penetrate the magic barrier on his cannon, thus inflicting damage.

"There's an old saying," Arctic said to herself, "answer the enemy's magic attack with an attack of your own. In this case, it's the force field on that big jerk's cannon!"

Enraged at her trickery, the cyclops bellowed out loud to increase his attack power, whilst making sure not to aim upwards so as to avoid risking the loss of his cannon's enchanted barrier. The Mistress of the Cold, on the other hand, flicked her index finger closer to herself, making the monster think she wished to be blown away. The cyclops obliged on her silent request and fired another cannonball. This time, however, she caught it with her bare hands despite wincing in pain at its heavy weight. Realizing that any attempt to kick the ball back at the cannon like a soccer ball would only result in a throbbing pain on her foot (even with her go-go boots on), she did the next best thing by swinging it around in the style of Wario's famous Wild Swing-Ding technique. As she increased her throwing power, the cyclops could only stare in awe at her true potential. Never before in his career as the Nightmare King's henchman had he ever seen a young woman fight back.

"Uh-oh..." Those were his last words before Arctic released the explosive cannonball straight into the mouth of the cannon where it exploded and took out the barrier, killing him instantly.

[End BGM]  
[Boss BGM: Stage Boss (Gradius Gaiden)]

Immediately after Arctic Bomber single-handedly destroyed all of the Nightmare Express's forces, hundreds of nightmare spirits flew out of nowhere and merged into a huge, animated tin soldier. Then it ran towards the engine car before jumping right in front, stretching out its arms to bring it to a screeching halt like a sumo wrestler, temporarily knocking Arctic off balance face-first. Next, the animated tin soldier fired "nightmare cannonballs" out of its hat, forcing the ex-Hate Bomber to avoid getting blown to bits. Afterwards, she was greeted with a big gunshot from the tin soldier's rifle, ducking beneath just in time to evade the attack.

"This thing seems tough," she commented, "but I'm not about to let King Sirius create anymore paradoxes in the space-time continuum! The Nightmare Express has got to go now!"

As she thought out loud, the animated tin soldier shook the engine car briefly in an effort to get her off the train but to no avail. Instead, it climbed onto the train, which got it moving again, and fired more big bullets out of its rifle. Then it jumped around to crush its assailant, and marched forth to kick her. Despite taking some hits, Arctic was far from dead.

"Okay, no more clowning around! I'm ending this fight whether the nightmares like it or not!"

Roughly five minutes later, she got ahold of the animated tin soldier's attack pattern and blew up its hat with her Neo Contra Rifle, forcing it to summon a thunderstorm to its aid. Using its own rifle as a lightning rod, the tin soldier charged up a lightning strike on the tip of its rifle and unleashed it all on Arctic, paralyzing her momentarily. Realizing she may not attack, she had to end this battle now. The iron giant got its rifle ready for another charged-up lightning bolt, but this time she lured it towards the chimney of the train. Once that was done, she waited for it to release another thunderbolt, and jumped out of the way at the last second. Instead of the bolt killing her, it struck the chimney and the boiler inside, causing the locomotive to detonate in a large explosion, destroying the animated tin soldier instantly.

[End BGM]

* * *

"WHOOOOOA!" Arctic Bomber screamed as she fell to the ground just a few feet from where the Nightmare Express was before it blew up. Fortunately, Cheerful White and Cute Pink came to her rescue and got her back inside their time machine. With the demon train destroyed, the history of the US military's bravery remained undamaged, in addition to Nemo, Camille, and Flip's quest to defeat the Nightmare King and free Slumberland.

"Whew, that was close..." she commented. "I hope I didn't accidentally create a paradox of my own when I had my Neo Contra Rifle out."

"Nah, I don't think so," said Cheerful White. "But hey, at least we finally got rid of every disaster that wasn't supposed to occur up to 1944."

"Freakin' yeah. I'll tell you something, though: the nightmares in this time period aren't used to getting their butts kicked by a girl."

"Yep, I can see why. You blew that blasted nightmare train away!"

"Now we've got King Sirius right where we want him!" beamed Cute Pink. "This time, we're making it count for all our friends in Diamond City!"

Satisfied that things were back to normal in 1905, the three Bombermen set course for June 6, 1944, the day the Allied forces began their D-Day on the beaches of Normandy against Nazi Germany. They resisted the urge to scream as their vehicle pulled them into another time and place once more. In the meantime, news of the Nightmare Express's complete destruction spread like wildfire; thus the Nightmare King decided he didn't want to have anything to do with Sirius for his failure any longer. Of course, he did wind up defeated anyway.

By the time Arctic and her friends arrive, they would eventually find their answers as to how Sirius suddenly came back to life, in addition to the surviving Dark Force Bombers' connections with him.

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

Alright, so perhaps this chapter was a bit shorter than I expected it to be, but it's better to have gotten it done than to have never done it at all. The final leg of Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink's journey through time is about to begin...


	7. The time-altered World War II

Arctic Bomber and her two allies have finally arrived in the year 1944, intent on setting things right one last time for history's sake.

EDIT: Sorry I accidentally marked this chapter as 7 instead of 6, but I got it fixed now.

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 6: The time-altered World War II

[Stage BGM: Menu Theme (Call of Duty 3)]

June 6, 1944...

This was the time the Allied forces began their assault throughout Normandy, France, firstly by storming Omaha Beach. Clearly, it was supposed to be the decisive Allied victory as far as historical facts go, but ever since Sirius took over Nazi Germany, he turned the tides by sending in an armada of unmanned aircraft and a bunch of tanks to wipe out the opposition. The unmanned machinery, unlike the aircraft and tanks the Germans used during the war, was rumored to have been reinforced to render all Allied forces' weaponry useless.

Of course, this would come as no surprise to Cheerful White, Cute Pink, and Arctic Bomber by the time they arrived in 1944, via the skies. They had dealt with enemy machines reinforced with Super Titanium alloy before. In short, they'd have to destroy all of the unmanned machinery so that the Allied forces would survive to win World War II against the Axis Powers...and history's future would be returned to normal.

"1944 at long last, fellas! You know what this means, right?" Arctic Bomber got out her Neo Contra Rifle in mid-sentence and continued, "I don't have to hold back from using my gun anymore!"

"Yeah, but how can we hope to survive?" asked Cheerful White.

"We just fight on, I guess." answered Cute Pink.

"You two pilot the ship," ordered Arctic, "I'll do the shooting around here."

Convinced there weren't any enemy tanks during the battle at Omaha Beach, Arctic Bomber got out a pair of magnetic boots and opened the door of the time machine. Then she jumped on top and closed the door; she was lucky the ship came with some emergency supplies in case of an ambush from the Axis Powers.

"Hey, Krauts! Here's some hot lead for breakfast, followed by a charged-up Energy Shot for lunch!"

Keeping her rifle equipped with Machine Gun, she unloaded aggressively on the enemy planes. Surprisingly to her, there weren't any pilots aboard said planes, giving her the assumption that they're all unmanned. Apparently, Sirius claimed that an unmanned ship is more competent than a manned one. Either way, Arctic shot them all down without mercy, thus giving the Allied soldiers on the surface the air support they need to make their way to Normandy. Once the enemy fighters were down, an all-too-familiar warship flew by.

[Interrupt BGM]  
[Fight BGM: Theme of the Mechanical Boss (Salamander 2)]

"The BigCore MK-I?!" Arctic questioned with exasperation. "What the hell's that thing doing in this time period?"

Cheerful White's voice came on through the radio. _I dunno, but I can tell it's not supposed to be here._

Cute Pink's voice followed behind, _That might be the reason our present time was altered...but I thought you, Blaze Bomber, Aaron, and Ami blew up all of those Bacterion ships._

Arctic Bomber could only sigh in response, still focused on the fight at hand. "We'll ask Sirius about it when we're clear, but right now, steer clear of its lasers! I'll prepare to destroy its core!"

Taking a gunner's stance, Arctic Bomber charged up her currently-equipped Fire Whip for its Energy Shot. As soon as she locked in, she unleashed the charged shot directly at the BigCore's center, piercing through its barrier panels and destroying the core, blowing up the whole Bacterion warship instantly. Unfortunately, that was merely a warm-up for what's coming next: a giant dragon-like battleship modeled after a many-headed hydra.

"I think I've seen this boss before. It's fought at the end of level 2 in the Japan-only _Salamander 2_...but where did Sirius get the Bacterion technology? He could only have gotten it if...no...that's not possible. Ahh, screw it!"

The giant battleship (which obviously wasn't supposed to be in World War II), known as the Hydra, extended its seven mechanical heads to blow flames at the time machine. White and Pink avoided the attack, whereas Arctic switched back to the Machine Gun before attacking the heads. The Hydra quickly retracted its heads to charge up and release a huge blast of fire from its main body. Arctic Bomber strategically countered with a mighty blizzard of her own, blowing out the flames and freezing the heads. Then she switched to the Fire Whip again and blew the Hydra's heads off with a barrage of Energy Shots, eventually causing its main body to detonate in a large explosion.

Then came one more Bacterion warship: this time the Lizard Core, encountered as a boss only in the arcade version of _Gradius III_ (Japan-only). Its arms extended from the middle area to move up and down firing lasers in conjunction with its main body's. The time machine took some hits, but not bad. Arctic Bomber, on the other hand, fired another barrage of Energy Shots at the barrier panels to expose the core. The Lizard Core's arms blocked some shots, but not all of them since it concentrated mostly on firing its lasers haphazardly. Fortunately, Arctic Bomber caught on to its attack pattern and took out the core, destroying the Lizard Core just before any Allied fighters were shot down nearby.

[End BGM]

* * *

As the Allied soldiers finished their battle on Omaha Beach, they cheered for White, Pink, and Arctic Bomber even though they never really met before. Arctic Bomber covered up the identity by telling the soldiers on the radio, that she and her friends call themselves the Time Pilots, who fight hard to secure the world's past...and that of World War II's history. Afterwards, she stepped back inside the time machine just before she and her friends were contacted by none other than Sirius.

[Interlude BGM: Environmental Intrigue (Metroid Fusion)]

_Hello, Arctic Bomber. It sure has been a while, hasn't it? I'll admit: I didn't expect you and your Bomber-pals would come this far, let alone undo the damage I did to history._

"How do you know about me, and why are those Bacterion ships here?" Arctic questioned. "They're not supposed to be around for another several years during World War II!"

_My, what a cold reception! Well, if you don't remember me, then surely you must recognize my motives. "Sirius" could only have acquired some Bacterion warships if I was pulling the strings. But since you really made it all the way to 1944 alive despite the computer virus I indirectly planted on your time machine, I suppose it won't kill me to explain everything._

"I think I've just figured it out. Who else would have an unhealthy obsession with Bacterion technology than someone like you?"

_Over 70 or so years from this time period, you and your fellow Contras killed me. I **am** General Shepherd..._

"But that's not possible - you're supposed to be dead!"

The tyrant changed his voice to remind Arctic of who he really is. _Indeed I was...and the real Sirius was actually dead long before I showed myself to you. When the Contras defeated 'King Sirius', his Rainbow Palace exploded, though its remains along with what's left of him miraculously flew off into the Pacific Ocean nearby New Zealand. After World War III was over, my men secretly salvaged the ruins of the Rainbow Palace and brought Sirius's dead remains into a classified section of Galuga Island's underground base. We merely managed to recreate his body based on our research, but could not revive him. Therefore, we did the next best thing and thought why not do the impossible by bringing a perfect meld of man and machine, or in my case, man and Bomber alike?_

White, Pink, and Arctic Bomber became flabbergasted at what they had just heard, especially the part about Shepherd being reborn inside Sirius's body. The thought about him having formed a meld of man and machine made them shudder in fear. Only Arctic had the guts to respond at this point. "So that means...Aaron, Ami, and Blaze Bomber must've overlooked it all this time during that second visit!"

_You're beginning to understand. I had it kept a top secret so that no one would ever suspect a thing. But even then, I held a sneaky suspicion you would eventually expose me and my true motives, so I had Colonel Bassad secretly scan my consciousness and personality, and implant them directly into Sirius's dead body long before your three Contra friends killed him. This was all part of my backup plan, in the event that you and your allies do manage to kill the original me. Of course, since Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber severed their ties with me, I had to put on a faux personality by pretending to be King Sirius, so that they wouldn't suspect it was me. I even brainwashed them into thinking I was Sirius, their new master._

"So this was merely some kind of illusion you put on, isn't it...?" wondered Cheerful White.

_Yes. I lured them in telepathically by bribing them with the revival of their two dead comrades: Earth Bomber and Fire Bomber. Of course, I only intended on using them insofar as to keep them from finding me out. In the end, I used a decommissioned cloning machine to regenerate the Bacterion ships, in addition to creating the tanks. The heart of the machine was a one-eyed spherical beast, known as Zelos Force. I then used him to create a flagship out of the underground base's remains, and to travel back to 1944 to change history in my favor. You could say he also provided me with an uncanny ability to summon monsters from the dead..._

"But why conquer the country you - the original you - actually came from?!" demanded Arctic Bomber.

_Revenge, for what you and your five Contra allies did to my dreams of building an empire for my very own! I've come to a realization the Bacterion technology was a gift from the gods in space. Believe me, I didn't want to have to resort to changing history in the first place, but you forced my hand._

"You STOLE it!"

_And I'd do it again throughout the next 70 years when I'm through! But since you killed the four Fiends of Chaos fair and square, I'll be happy to save you the trip to Germany. It's like the old saying: if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself. _Shepherd's image was replaced with a large Bacterion flagship, while his voice continued emanating from the radio. _This flagship you see on the monitor is the heart of the Bacterion ships and tanks that are doing well in the place of Hitler's so-called German soldiers, courtesy of Zelos Force. As long as he exists, my Bacterion forces will continue to multiply, for they are linked in a hive mind! Now that you've figured me out for who I really am, I'll just have to change my history-altering plans a little, so that instead of Sirius ruling the world 70 years since World War II, it's the Bacterions...with me at the helm. This may not be what I had in mind to begin with, but that's fine by me._

[End BGM]  
[Justice BGM: Character Select (Contra ReBirth)]

"I've heard enough, you bastard!" Arctic shouted. "Your sick obsession with Bacterion technology ends here! You hear me?! You can't mess with history as long as we Bombermen and women are around to set things right for mankind - and our human friends!"

"Though we unofficially dub ourselves as Time Pilots," added White, "we're gonna make sure the history of World War II stays the way it was supposed to be - in favor of the Allied forces!"

"We Bombermen are also capable of learning from history, just so you know!" concluded Pink.

The heroic "Time Pilots" shut off their radio, and flew off for Berlin, Germany to do battle against the reincarnated General Shepherd and his recreated Bacterion armada. They spent a few minutes theorizing that if they take out the flagship at its source, all of the Bacterion technology linked to it in a hive mind would all self-destruct simultaneously. Then the Axis Powers would no longer have any unfair advantage from the future, and the Allied forces would survive to defeat Hitler in Europe, along with the Imperial Japanese Army within the Pacific Theater...

[End BGM]

* * *

[Fight BGM: Boss Rush Part 1 (Gradius Gaiden)]

But even when it was still June 6, 1944, the tides of World War II were still in the Axis Powers' favor due to the unmanned Bacterion ships and tanks alike, all reinforced with Super Titanium alloy. Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink knew by then that they must destroy the heart of the flagship, Zelos Force, along with General Shepherd. Even though the underground base of Galuga Island was now a shell of its former self, it wasn't any less dangerous. However, since Zelos was fused with the remodeled base, it now sported a major weakness. Recalling from the _Gradius_ games Arctic had played so far, destroying the absolute center of the Bacterion invasion would not only take out the whole base, but the machines it deployed in a hive mind as well. It'd be like taking them out in one blow, but the obvious problem was there were no extra lives to keep Arctic and the others afloat. One shot was all they got, but one shot was all they needed to ensure that all traces of stolen Bacterion technology on Earth would really be no more.

Along the way, the heroic Bombermen were assisted by a small fleet of Allied fighters, whose pilots introduced themselves as the Cure Squadron. Fighting behind enemy lines, the squadron swore to "cure" Europe of the Axis-infested dictatorship. Apparently, they were on the same mission that Arctic, White, and Pink are now: to destroy the Bacterion flagship that was branded earlier as Nazi Germany's ultimate secret weapon. If they manage to take out the core, the Germans will be left with no other option but to use their old military technology again, thus returning the history of World War II back to the way it was meant to be.

It was not a moment too soon, that the Allied squadron arrived above Berlin, Germany, with the Bacterion flagship flying right in front of them. Arctic Bomber immediately recognized it as bearing a small (but still large) resemblance to the planet-sized Bacterion warship that showed up in both Gradius II and IV. Its frontal hatch opened, releasing not one, but two Covered Cores at once. Both of them haven't changed a bit from the last time Arctic Bomber fought one (at least, in the unaltered present time, when she was with the other three Contras). All the Covered Cores did were rotate their nuclear symbol-shaped shields around their main bodies, firing a barrage of missiles in the process.

Before commencing attack on the twin Covered Cores, Arctic Bomber ordered, "Half of our squad will destroy the machine on the right, while the other half handle the one on the left! The barrier panels should be easy to penetrate with your missiles!"

The Mistress of the Cold strapped on her magnetic boots again, and got out on top of the time machine to do some damage with her Neo Contra Rifle (but not before setting it to Diver Mines). She fired a barrage of homing missiles, the Diver Mines' charge shot, at the Covered Cores' own missiles to prevent them from taking out the Allied fleet. Then the Cure Squadron focused on firing their own missiles to break through the barrier panels whenever the Covered Cores' shields stopped spinning. Finally, they targeted - and shot the exposed cores, destroying both Covered Cores simultaneously. Arctic Bomber switched to the Fire Whip, and fired a few charged Energy Shots to blow the Bacterion flagship's frontal hatch open.

[End BGM]

"We're heading inside the flagship to take out the primary core," she called. "Exercise caution now!"

The Allied forces wasted no time blasting the gun turrets that were not reinforced with Super Titanium, while Arctic took out the Bacterion ships with the Machine Gun from her Neo Contra Rifle. A few minutes later, the fleet stopped just before hitting a wall.

"That's no ordinary wall," said White.

"It's a gun wall!" Pink shouted the obvious.

Arctic Bomber added her two cents, "There's a variation of gun walls in the _Gradius_ games, and I know which one this gun wall came from..."

The gun wall, codenamed "Bloody Gate" due to its reddish hue like in _Gradius IV_, was armed with four laser cannons, along with two hatches that generated unmanned walkers. It also housed two cores, each protected by five barrier panels. While the cannons weren't reinforced, they could regenerate a few moments after being destroyed. Fortunately, though, the walls outside of the contraption didn't move up and down sporadically like in the actual game. Still, the constant laser fire was to be taken into account. The Cure Squadron used their ace piloting skills to avoid the shots, circling around to blow up the cannons and the barrier panels guarding the cores. Arctic Bomber got into the action by firing more charged Energy Shots to destroy the cores, eventually causing the "Bloody Gate" to detonate in a big enough explosion to reduce it to a pile of scrap.

But just then, a surprise came from behind the wreckage. It was a giant spider walker, codenamed the Shadow Dancer in _Gradius II_.

The Cure Squadron leader called Arctic and friends on the radio:_ This metallic menace looks indestructible. Time Pilots, we'll distract it while you take out the main core!_

Arctic Bomber acknowledged, "Copy that! Try to come back with the Allied forces alive."

_You too. Good luck, and may the tides of history flow in your favor._

[Final battle BGM: Last Battle (Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA, via FFI))]

Air-dodging carefully through the Shadow Dancer's spear-tipped legs, Arctic Bomber and her Bomber-pals flew all the way to the center of the Bacterion flagship, with a metallic gate closing behind them. To their surprise, they saw Shepherd (in Sirius's body) floating above Zelos Force's spherical being. It appeared as if he were merely fusing with the core itself! "Somehow, I knew you'd come all the way here unscathed, and alone to boot. Well, you're already too late! Once I've finished absorbing Zelos Force's life force, I'll be reborn as the mighty Bacterion God! Why rule only one or two countries, when I can rule an entire planet from within my flagship! Kneel, all those, that stand before me!"

"We'll never kneel to you, traitor!" yelled Cute Pink.

"Hitler and his Axis forces may have been power-mad with dominion, but their agenda didn't involve using sophisticated - yet stolen - alien technology to end mankind's existence on Earth!" reminded Cheerful White.

"Yeah!" agreed Arctic Bomber. "You're just as bad as they are, if not a lot worse! You know we're gonna stop you, Shepherd!"

"Such empty words, Arctic Bomber," Shepherd said coldly. "But even if you do kill me again, that time machine of yours will cease to exist, leaving you stranded in the year 1944 for the rest of your lives."

"Oh, right..." said White. "We got it from the time-altered year 20XX - our time."

"But we'll still be able to return before it disappears...right?" asked Pink.

"If it does cease to exist, our sacrifices will be worth it."

The treacherous general called out one last time prior to the mutation, "Either way, your time is nigh! Oh, and one more thing, in case you missed the point on how I was able to summon a group of monsters: I used Zelos Force's power to revive the four Fiends of Chaos from the dead! Once again, I had no intention of doing all this to begin with, but you kept forcing me to take extreme measures to kill you."

Having finished absorbing Zelos Force's life force, General Shepherd shed Sirius's body, once again no longer a man but a distorted beast. Unlike last time, however, he took the form of a large beast with bat-like wings, along with a spiky tail on his back and a pair of horns atop his head. Arctic, White, and Pink recognized this form as Chaos from _Final Fantasy I_. With that done, he beckoned in a monstrous voice, **"Now, I'm gonna scare you like you've never been scared before!"**

Recalling himself Chaos, the self-proclaimed "Bacterion God" began by attacking with Blaze, a strong fire-elemental attack. It instantly enveloped the entire center of the Bacterion flagship in a volcanic manifestation with lava geysers erupting all over the place. Arctic Bomber quickly got back inside the time machine and activated its emergency force field to nullify the fatal damage. The time machine, despite losing the force field from the intensive lava geysers, only suffered little damage. Chaos followed up with Tsunami, a strong water-elemental attack which enveloped the lair in a giant tsunami wave. White and Pink fired the boosters on the time machine to "ride it out", so as to avoid getting slammed against the wall which could wreck their ship. Once the tsunami was over, Arctic Bomber jumped out on top of the time machine once again with her magnetic boots.

"That's it! I'VE HAD ENOUGH!"

Because time was not on her side during D-Day, the honorary Contra attacked aggressively with machine gun fire, followed by shooting Diver Mines in grenade launcher fashion, and Energy Shots from the charged-up Fire Whip. Chaos countered the attacks with Cyclone, a strong wind-elemental attack which summoned a devastating tornado to inflict serious damage on the time machine. White and Pink flew around to get out of the tornado's range of gusty winds, until it dissipated. Arctic Bomber kept attacking like crazy with her Neo Contra Rifle along with her Bowling Bombs, but stopped only a minute later to calm herself and focus on the enemy's weakness. The still-alive Zelos Force was the source of Shepherd's "Chaos" form, and destroying it would end his Bacterion campaign for good. While the winged beast attacked, Zelos Force was defenseless.

**"Pound me all you wish, but I'll never be defeated! Curaja!"**

The beast healed all wounds to his body instantly, seemingly restarting the final battle anew. But Arctic Bomber wouldn't have it anymore. She focused her attacks directly on Zelos Force, until he went "BWAAAAAAAAAAAH!" and exploded like a time bomb, finally ending the battle.

[End BGM]

**"What?! No! I absorbed Zelos Force's power to become an invincible Bacterion God! I...I shouldn't be..."**

"You only linked yourself with him in a hive mind," explained Arctic Bomber. "All of your Bacterion forces will perish in self-destruction, returning World War II's history back to normal on both opposing factions. I know it can't guarantee the Allied forces will pull through unscathed, but it's way better than negatively affecting the present and future with the Bacterion warships."

**"Nevertheless, there will be a distant Bacterion God from 70 years in the future, following in my footsteps where I failed. Even if you do return to the present before your time machine ceases to exist, the Bacterion invasion is inevitable. As for what's going to happen to you, if I die, you die with me in hell! Good bye!"**

With his last breath, Shepherd/Chaos self-destructed in an explosion, starting a chain reaction which would eventually destroy the entire flagship. Since Arctic Bomber, Cheerful White, and Cute Pink were still trapped inside the center, it seemed there was no way out anymore. They would have to take the sacrifice, so that we, the Four Contras (including honorary Contra, Blaze Bomber), would live again in the restored present time. Just then, two manned enemy fighters flew by. Aqua Bomber and Cyclone Bomber were inside, albeit no longer hostile.

"We're finally free from Shepherd's brainwashing!" beamed Aqua Bomber.

"But, that doesn't excuse everything we've done to you and your friends, Arctic Bomber," added Cyclone Bomber. "It took us a while to realize that we were wrong."

Arctic Bomber nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. But you do know we're all about to die!"

The unofficial leader of the Dark Force Bombers acknowledged Arctic's words, knowing the time to join the other two dead comrades in the afterlife was nigh. "Not yet. However, Cyclone and I will have to make a kamikaze run to open the exit for you three."

"This is all we can do for you now." Cyclone closed her eyes in mid-sentence. "I guess it's been nice knowing you..."

In a last ditch effort, Aqua and Cyclone Bomber thrust their fighters as fast as they could, setting them to explode along the way. Immediately, they crashed and detonated their ships, not only sacrificing their own lives, but also destroying the metallic gate. With little to no time to mourn their deaths, the three heroic Bombermen flew on out of the exploding flagship alongside the Cure Squadron.

* * *

[Victory BGM: Popstar Saved (Kirby Super Star)]

As the Allied forces evacuated in time to a minimum safe distance, the Bacterion flagship exploded like an atomic bomb, followed by all unmanned Bacterion ships, planes, and tanks self-destructing simultaneously. The history of World War II was restored to its former glory at last.

"Now that's one heck of a D-Day indeed!" White beamed triumphantly.

"I know, right? We did it!" Pink cheered happily.

[End BGM]

The Axis Powers in Germany were left with one option: to declare "King Sirius's" plans unconstitutional, release Hitler from cryogenic stasis (which was Shepherd's doing), and resume the war as normal. It eventually became a historical fact once again, that the Axis Powers were later defeated in 1945, ending World War II in spite of heavy casualties on the opposing factions. Either way, the space-time continuum from 1944 up to the year 20XX was restored back to normal, with the Four Contras, Blaze Bomber, and the WarioWare staff alive and well. White, Pink, and Arctic felt their time-restoring job was finally done, and thus bid the Cure Squadron farewell on behalf of the Allied forces before departing one last time...

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

History is saved, and our heroes are returning to the present in glory - at least before their time machine disappears out of existence.


	8. Back to the restored present time

After all the whacked-out trouble Arctic, White, and Pink had gone through, they've finally finished their job as planned and are on their way back to the year 20XX...

**DISCLAIMER: Bomberman belongs to Hudson Soft, despite the company being in Konami's hands as of March 1, 2012 (with the latter having bought them out). WarioWare, on the other hand, is owned by Nintendo, whereas Contra belongs to Konami. Final Fantasy is a property of Square-Enix. Any songs "used" throughout the course of this fanfic are properties of their respective owners, along with any characters that aren't within the four franchises listed here, unless stated otherwise.**

* * *

Chapter 7: Back to the restored present time

[Reunion BGM: Ending (Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland)]

Finally after departing all the way from the year 1944 back to March 15, 20XX, not only was everything in Diamond City perfectly normal; Phoebe, Yuffie, Mona, 9-Volt's mom, and just about everybody else, including Arctic's fellow Contras, were all safe and sound. Even 9-Volt was his usual positive self again, much to White and Pink's relief. Though it was possible they could also have traveled to the time the Alien Wars had begun with Red Falcon and his brethren back on the surface of Earth, the fact their time machine was soon to be erased from history would have left them stranded and even dead before they'd prevent the death of 9-Volt's dad. Despite missing that one time-only opportunity, Arctic Bomber still felt satisfied with her mission to restore the space-time continuum as the time machine and all of its emergency supplies, including the anti-aging belts, disappeared out of existence. In fact, she and her two Bomber-pals didn't age a bit during their time-travelling journey.

"Hey, guys! GUYS! We're back, and you'll never imagine what we had been through lately!"

Blaze Bomber held his head in confusion momentarily. "Huh? But you've only been gone for over 30 minutes..."

"It's a long story, especially with a crap-load of time travel we've had to deal with."

"Sure looks like it," said Phoebe. "From what I can tell, you must have been through a whole lot today."

"We certainly have," commented White. "But we'll try our best to explain the whole thing anyway, so bear with us on what we're about to say..."

Cute Pink, on the other hand, was relieved to see 9-Volt happy and healthy, and enveloped her arms around him in a warm, affectionate hug. "9-Volt, you're alive! It IS you!"

9-Volt blushed, but hugged her back anyway. "Hi, Pink. What happened to you and your best friend, White?"

"We've had a long, LONG day, and like Arctic just said, you are NOT gonna believe what we had to go through when history was all messed up and stuff..."

Yuffie was intrigued to hear the whole story. "So, what was it like? Did you get to go to ancient Japan or meet some of the famous people from the olden days? Don't worry, I'll let you guys answer for me; I mean after all, you three are the only ones who remember your journey."

[End BGM]  
[Ending BGM: Return to the Star (Gradius III (SNES))]

The threesome explained everything about their journey, from going through the different eras to the shocking truth about General Shepherd being brought back to life through Colonel Bassad's insertion of his consciousness and personality into Sirius's dead, salvaged body. Arctic added the part about his source of power having emanated from Zelos Force, which immediately brought us to our attention without delay. Unsurprisingly, we could only have known about that spherical beast if we had already played some of the _Gradius_ games he showed up in as a boss, firstly being _Salamander_ (aka. _Lifeforce_). What we didn't know, however, was the fact that he somehow came to exist in real life due to Shepherd and Bassad's intervention.

"So let me get this straight," I summarized, "you actually went back in time to undo the damage to history to guarantee our well-being?"

"Yeah," answered White. "I wish we could've done the same for 9-Volt's dad right after we finished our job, but we didn't want to risk a paradox or getting ourselves killed..."

Ami nodded. "I understand. But at least you three did the right thing, by which I mean the best you could. We're just glad you're all okay in the end."

Bill added, "And this time, we'll see the last of Shepherd and his sick obsession with stealing Bacterion technology for his own personal gain."

"So, we're good to go, right?" wondered Lance. "We've wiped the remaining sources of the stolen warships off the face of the Earth, while Privates Jimbo and Sully showed their bravery by helping us stop the attack on Diamond City."

"It'll be a while before we're fully ready to work alongside the world leaders to repel the oncoming Bacterion invasion," answered Blaze Bomber. "If it means we must travel through space along the way to planet Gradius, we'll do it."

"Not just for the sake of innocent lives in the country which we live in," acknowledged Arctic Bomber, "but also the future of planets Earth and Bomber. Like you, Aaron, Ami, Bill, and Lance said: we are Contras!"

"As long as we're around to set things right, the forces of evil can't mess with history nor the freedom of Earth. However, we need to take into the account the destruction of Area 51, though it was the only way we could assure the stolen Bacterion warships wouldn't come out and terrorize mankind. What I'm saying is, we're likely to be held responsible even if General Shepherd's surviving followers are without a leader. Speaking of which, the organization he was in charge of doesn't really go by 'Shadow Company' or 'Blood Falcon' at all; in fact, its real name is the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. We recently discovered it within the last two weeks, but there just wasn't any time to explain in full detail because of the modifications Dr. Crygor, Penny, and I had been implementing on the Contra Cruiser then."

"Wait, wait, wait..." interrupted the Mistress of the Cold. "You're joking, right? THE Weyland-Yutani?"

"Apparently, they know how to hide its true identity real well, mostly to keep their motives classified from the public. Like with the _Alien_ movies Aaron and Ami told me about, the so-called Company desires to profit from their bio-weapons division even at the expense of other people's lives. If this means we must meet with them in the court of law, we'll be ready to explain the truth, only the truth, and nothing but the truth."

And thus, we all gathered up to listen in to the full details about Weyland-Yutani, including its co-leaders (with General Shepherd being one of them) and their "classified" interests in both the Xenomorph biology and Bacterion technology as well. Obviously, they have much to answer for their crimes, and not just the fact that General Shepherd personally ordered the complete destruction of Diamond City just to kill us and our friends for learning the truth about Project: ACT ZERO. Because we averted the attack prior to taking out the rest of the stolen Bacterion warships at the source, Area 51, the people of the United States won't have to put up with Weyland-Yutani's cover-up story about us being a group of terrorists. On top of that, we pretty much predicted they would sue us prior to doing everything in their power to cover themselves by spreading lies about us in the court of law. But with our evidence, which presents the whole truth about them and their so-called project, we should be able to prove them wrong when the time is right...

THE END

(Ending Credits)  
Cheerful White - TARA STRONG  
Cute Pink - JANICE KAWAYE  
Arctic Bomber - GREY DELISLE  
Sirius - DAVID KAYE  
General Shepherd ("Sirius's" true identity) - LANCE HENRIKSEN  
Aqua Bomber - BRIAN DOBSON  
Cyclone Bomber - KATHLEEN BARR  
9-Volt - TARA STRONG  
Phoebe - HYNDEN WALCH  
Aaron (me) - MYSELF  
Ami - JANICE KAWAYE  
Bill Rizer - BOB BUCHHOLZ  
Lance Bean - SYLVESTER STALLONE  
Blaze Bomber - SCOTT MENVILLE  
Yuffie Kisaragi - CHRISTY CARLSON ROMANO  
Lich - DEE BRADLEY BAKER  
Marilith - JENNIFER HALE  
Kraken - KEVIN MICHAEL RICHARDSON  
Tiamat - SUSAN SILO

[End BGM]  
[End Credits]

* * *

The time-travelling adventure has come to an end, and though the full details on Weyland-Yutani and their plans for "building better worlds" will have to be for another time and story, peace has again visited Diamond City with the history of the world mended back to its former glory.


End file.
